Commentary: Is Marriage False Advertising?

An old man dressed in head-to-toe brown walks into the store today with his equally wrinkled wife. She pushes the cart, she sets the pastel geraniums (only old people like those shades) onto the counter. Meanwhile, he gripes to her about the outrageous prices. "Woman, do you know how much yer costin' me?" She shakes her head and continues to dirty up my counter with soil. She finishes; the total is on the screen. "Jesus, woman. You don't even want to know how much this is costin.'"

Empathizing with the woman, I snatch his greasy American Express (it was covered in pimento cheese spread remnants) and swipe it mechanically through the credit card machine. I voraciously tear off the receipt and curtly say "Sign this, please." Small victories against the elderly are the only reasons why I don't gauge my eyes out with a plastic spoon each day that I work. Petty, pathetic, even, but everyone has that something that keeps them going.

I think the old shit leaves, but all of a sudden, he returns, cored pineapple in hand. "With these prices, I could have bought a car when I was your age," he laughs. First of all, the way he phrased that makes no fucking sense whatsoever, and second of all, what does it matter? It wasn't funny, and it wasn't relevant. After a certain age, people should have their larynx removed. It saves them from embarrassment.

I refuse to smile, instead I stare blankly into his thick and slightly yellow lenses; I'm still seething after how he treated his wife. "Your total is $4.99," I respond.

He is bewildered. He lowers the glasses down his liver spotted nose. Clears his throat, and begins the process of patronization, "Miss, that is not what the sign says."

Granted, if I like the person I'm checking out, I am very agreeable and generally do not even care. This was not the case. This man is not infallible, he is not some pontiff. I will bring him down swiftly and accordingly. "No, the container says $4.99. Therefore, sir, (I relish in the bitchy cadence) I charged you $4.99."

Clearly this man isn't accustomed to not being catered to. He turns even pinker than his rosacea covered cheeks. I am impressed. I didn't know this was possible. I see beads of sweat begin to trickle down his butterball forehead. "I'll get you the sign, then."

I clear my throat. "That won't be necessary." I'm growing impatient; I have nothing to do, yet I have no time for the pedantics of a stingy old bastard. "Sir, that sign says a whole pineapple is $3.99. You did not buy a whole pineapple. You bought a cored pineapple, marked $4.99. If you do not want it, I can put it back, but I won't change the price."

He walks back to the counter, blubbering in his own sweat. "This, girl, is false advertising." He proceeds to point a fat and ashy finger at me, then at the pineapple in question.

Not even bothering to be polite anymore, I roll my eyes and flippantly say, "No it's not."

This is getting fun. Maybe he'll have a heart attack. Just kidding, I really just wanted to see how much sweat his body was capable of producing in three minutes.

He shakes his head. "Yes," he glowers, "it is."

Just for fun, I throw in another childish "No it's not."

He tries to interject, I beat him. "Bye!" I wave. He buys no pineapple, I still win. And his wife wins. Someone finally put him in his place.

---

The other day I went to the gym. Shocking, I know. It was a balmy 65 degrees and sunny, I was wearing a white tank top, well actually cream, but...just kidding. I'm sounding verbose and therefore sound as if I have angina and eat dinner at three in the afternoon. But, I digress. It was around noon, and I figured no one would be there. The prime time for me to work out (in truth, I don't like others to be around when I work out, I feel like I'm being watched, but then again I am paranoid). And as I get out of the car, smiling at the lack of cars in the freshly painted lot, I see them. The Moms. You know, athletic pants with the white vertical stripes, stark white Reeboks, "Mom" raglans with various athletic "Mom" insignia, baseball caps with their heat-damaged ponytails poking through the back to be "fun" and "youthful?" The ones who, despite all of the years, still refuse to believe that their hips are wider and their breasts are saggier?

I wanted to know more, so I put in my headphones to my iPod, and pretended to listen. Really, I was listening to their conversation. "Yeah, Debbie, I had the mandarin chicken salad for lunch. It was pretty good. You know how they love it in Weight Watchers."

"Oh, Jan, I know. But secretly I've been lusting for a Dove bar. I saw them on sale the other day in Target and had to say, 'No, Deb. You want those size 10 Gloria Vanderbilt jeans from Kohl's.' So I bought hand sanitizer instead."

"Oh, yeah, I saw those the other day. With the kids and all of this swine flu business, you just can't be too careful."

"Yeah, Jean. So whaddaya makin' for dinner?"

"Oh, something that Tom likes. Something that the kids like. Probably some casserole; I can't eat it because it'll go straight to my thighs, but it's OK."



And then it hit me. Surely these women didn't think that a day would ever come when they would need to choose hand sanitizer over chocolate. Surely they didn't think they would have to suffer through boring meals in order to fit into cheaply made clothing. Surely they didn't think they would have to plan a "meal" around another's wants, and against their [insert troublesome body part here] issues. Surely the old woman didn't marry a man who would complain about a one dollar difference in pineapple prices. Or at least I hope not. If so, I take back all flippant behavior I had, for she doesn't deserve it. What do these women have in common?

Marriage. Eight measly letters, yet the initial descent into the mundane. For both sexes. Media bombards us with these ideals of what marriage really "is:" bliss, happiness, and complete ease for both partners involved. Is that the case, though? We don't all wake up to hairstylists like Nick and Jessica, and we cannot all afford fancy clothes, cars, and various exotic babies like Brad and Angelina. In addition to these heavenly images, we are innundated with divorces. Marriage is no longer a lifelong commitment and union, but merely a next step, a transient one at that.

This makes me wonder, do we really even know what marriage is anymore? Is marriage really just false advertising? To me, not even knowing what a marriage is threatens the sanctity of it more than two Queens in San Francisco ever could. I see couples date for several years, and perhaps out of boredom, excitement, fear, really...any emotion, they decide the next logical step is to wed. And, granted, it's natural. Erikson would call this the "Intimacy vs. Isolation" stage of human development. However, due to certain societal standards, one automatically equates "intimacy" with marriages, and that is most certainly not always the case. To me, marriage is the catalyst that ruins what could be a healthy relationship. Men and women buy into the notion of the solidarity and safety of "everlasting love," and assume that because they are bound together by paper and a golden ring, these feelings will never escape.

Wrong. Love, like anything intangible, has no definite shape; it is abstract. It is malleable, it is maneuverable, indeed it is tarnishable, but there is nothing static about it. Love is dynamic, and changes with time, like people. Memory, hopes, desires, and fears change as a person does, therefore it is childish to assume that love will not. And that is where people go wrong. Men and women assume that when they make this "eternal commitment," their "love" meets eyes with Medusa and therefore is set in stone for the rest of eternity. However, her hold is not strong enough, and when this allegedly solid "love" begins to crumble, said couple assumes failure, and calls it quits. Or, they keep going with the belief that they have failed, and lead their lives as failures, and then become failures. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and either way it leads to making fatty casseroles, just for a different number of people.

No one wants the highlight of their day to be exchanging broccoli casserole recipes. No one wants to haggle with their husband about produce prices. No one wants to lose themselves, and no one should want to be unhappy. The institution of marriage, while religiously "sound," is nothing the way it used to be. It is an archaic notion that does not adapt well to the times in which we live. Marriage tries to capture love and place it in a cell, however love, the sly chameleon, always manages to find its way out. We should love, but not imprison. We should not confine the ones we love in a golden cells, for gold, a precious metal, can easily be destroyed.